safe and active communities (sac) branch

​​California's Electronic Violent Death Reporting System (CalEVDRS)

Mission/Vision

To better understand the circumstances and the risk factors that lead to
violent deaths in California through the use of innovative, efficient data
collection from the richest data sources on violent deaths.

Program Description

From 2005 through 2008, California was one of 17 states participating in the
National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), funded by the Centers of
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Under NVDRS, we contracted with county
health departments to collect data on violent deaths from four data sources –
death certificates, coroner/medical examiner records, police reports, and crime
laboratory records. Traditionally, public health tries to understand these
deaths by analyzing death certificates alone, which describe the victim but tell
little about the circumstances. To get a more complete picture of each death,
NVDRS takes advantage of all data sources available.

During its four years of data collection, the California Department of Public
Health (CDPH) compiled detailed information on circumstances of more than 10,000
violent deaths, including homicides and suicides. With the participation of
Alameda, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Shasta
Counties, we have valuable information on approximately half the state’s violent
deaths during this time. This information can be used to inform violence
prevention policies in California.

Unfortunately, due to its size, decentralized government, privacy concerns
and lack of resources among law enforcement agencies, California was unable to
obtain law enforcement records required by NVDRS and could not reapply for
funding. Fortunately, CDPH had realized this incompatibility early on in the
NVDRS grant and, in its commitment to expand this valuable program
statewide, secured funding to develop CalEVDRS, a more practical model than the
labor-intensive NVDRS.

CalEVDRS took advantage of California’s Electronic Death Registration System
(CA-EDRS), created in 2005 to allow counties to file death certificates online
instead of mailing paper forms. Using funds from The David and Lucile Packard
Foundation, we created a violent death supplement to death certificates in
CA-EDRS, which captures information from coroners on violent death. To ensure a
smooth transition from NVDRS, CalEVDRS data elements were created according to
NVDRS specifications and can be transmitted to NVDRS if CDC desires them. Law
enforcement data for homicides are linked using Supplementary Homicide Reports
(SHR) from the California Department of Justice.

Given their commitment to violence prevention, The California Wellness
Foundation (TCWF) funded us to continue developing this system by allowing us to
pay coroners to complete this supplement. As of 2010, fourteen counties are
contributing data to this system, boosting our multi-source data on violent
deaths to approximately 57% of the state's total and two-thirds of all homicides
in California. We are also using these funds to improve CA-EDRS so that
counties can transfer data electronically from any software to CA-EDRS, instead
of entering data directly into CA-EDRS. This could increase participation even
more and limit the cost of doing so.

Target Population

Data on the most common risk factors
for violent deaths will be valuable to inform legislators, public health
professionals, community leaders, and violence prevention advocates and allow
them to make sound data-informed decisions.

Key Partners

Local health departments, county coroners, law enforcement agencies, and the
California Department of Justice, who all provide data and will benefit from
learning more about violent deaths in their communities.

CA-EDRS is a key partner as we utilize this system to collect our data and
fund improvements to the system.

The California Wellness Foundation, who funds our project and uses the data
to inform its violence prevention grant making decisions.

The California Research Bureau of the State Library, who is helping promote
the value of this system to legislative staff.

Advocacy groups will be key partners as data are analyzed and used to make
policy recommendations to prevent these deaths.

Recent
Successes/Milestones

Since 2006, CalEVDRS has:

Utilized California's Electronic Death Registration System (CA-EDRS) to
build an efficient web-based electronic violent death reporting
system using NVDRS data specifications.

Expanded data collection from 6 to 14 counties, potentially capturing
detailed information on two-thirds of all homicides in California and more than
half of all violent deaths.

Presented data at the Department of Defense/Veteran Affairs Joint Suicide
Prevention Conference and the American Association of Suicidology Annual
Conference in 2009.

Provided data to agencies such as: California Department of Mental Health
for the state Suicide Prevention Strategic Plan, Sacramento County Mental Health
Department, California Office of Gang and Youth Violence Policy, California
Research Bureau, and various county health departments.

Used its progress to promote this system among data providers and other
agencies throughout the state.